


Chiaroscuro

by Terminallydepraved



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Detective Noir, Implied Sexual Content, Kissing, M/M, Noir AU, detective!silva, femme fatale!chrollo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-09
Updated: 2015-12-09
Packaged: 2018-05-05 21:30:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5391116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Terminallydepraved/pseuds/Terminallydepraved
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life is rarely black and white.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chiaroscuro

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Megane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Megane/gifts).



> this is a christmas present to the resplendent Exorealistic. i hope you enjoy, dearest.

The clatter and rattle of the storm outside nearly masked the knock on the door.

Silva startled, his eyes heavy with exhaustion and the late hour weighing oppressively across his shoulders. The clock, ever vigil, read half past midnight. It was far too late for clients, but the insistent knock would not be deterred. With a sigh and harsh crack of his neck, Silva gave in.

“Come in,” he called out, frowning at the messy state of his office, the coffee in the carafe that had long gone cold, the stack of newspapers and files lining the walls. There wasn’t much around to attract a client, let alone make them feel welcome, but there wasn’t much to be done about it now.

He sat a little straighter, his eyes a little brighter, when the stranger walked through the door, all thoughts of the office gone.

“I’m so sorry for the late hour,” the man managed to say, his teeth beginning to chatter. He was soaking wet, the fancy material of his coat and scarf dripping onto the warped hardwood. “But I didn’t know where else to turn.” The words were layered in urgency, panic.

Even half drowned, the water couldn’t hide how beautiful he was.

Silva swallowed and force himself to his feet. “Try and calm down, here,” he grunted as he moved around his desk to take the stranger’s coat. He hadn’t noticed how gruff his voice had grown from disuse. “Let’s get you comfortable. Can’t have you keeling over in my office from hypothermia, the cops would never let me hear the end of it.”

Though his attempt at humor had been poor, it still bought him a trembling smile.

“Thank you, Detective.” The man gratefully took the proffered dry, thick coat, wrapping it around his thin shoulders. “I’m sorry for being such a mess. It’s been— I haven’t had an easy time getting here.”

Tamping down on the urge to fuss with the way the man held the coat around himself, Silva instead eased himself back into his chair. “I can tell. Why don’t we start with your name, since you seem familiar with me already,” he gave, his voice coming out a bit lighter this time.

The man flushed a bit, though from embarrassment or the cold it was hard to tell. “Of course, I apologize. My name is Chrollo. Chrollo Lucilfer.” More water dripped from his hair as he dipped his head, his politeness and decorum so out of place in the dingy space.

“Pleasure,” Silva returned, trying to place the name. “What seems to be the problem, Mr. Lucilfer? It must be important if you came all this way with the weather like that.” Another thunderclap punctuated his point, rattling the cheap windows in their frames. He didn’t miss how the sound made his client jump or the way his body seemed to almost disappear within the folds of his coat.

“Please, call me Chrollo.” Chrollo paused there to reach for his pocket, pulling from it a slightly damp envelope. Passing it across the desk, he continued. “I’m afraid I’m being blackmailed. I don’t know what to do and I’m afraid, I think they might be following me.”

Silva could believe that, hearing the poorly masked waver in his voice. Blackmail cases were always like this, the victim petrified but resolute to find justice despite it all. He carefully pulled open the envelope, careful of the delicate state of the paper. “Do you know who’s doing it? What they have on you?” he asked as he read the threat scrawled out in a messy hand. It wasn’t as tawdry as some of the newsprint scrap notes he had seen, but the threat was still fairly textbook.

Chrollo shook his head, pulling the coat around himself tighter. “I haven’t the foggiest idea. It was inside my penthouse last night, sitting on my table.” Here he brought his hands to his face, seemingly overcome by the stress of it all. “How did they get inside my home?” he asked, looking to Silva imploringly, his fear tarnishing his pretty face.

Despite how sweet he looked, Silva merely raised a brow. “I can’t help you if you aren’t honest with me, Chrollo.” He’d been doing this long enough to tell when he was being suckered, and it would take more than a pretty boy like this to pull one over on him. “Why don’t we try this again?”

To his credit, Chrollo didn’t flinch. Instead, he smiled. The shaking in his shoulders eased, his expression cleared up. It was like watching a mask fall away.

“What gave me away?” he asked, the tremble that had been present in his voice since entering absent, as if it had never existed in the first place. “I thought I played the part perfectly.”

Rolling his eyes, Silva took him in anew. “I’ve been doing this since before you could walk. You’ll have to try harder to fool me.” Reaching for his cigarettes, he fumbled for the lighter. “So, how much of all that was true? Is your name really Chrollo?”

A delicate hand took the lighter, flicking it on with practiced confidence. He waited until Silva had lit his cigarette and taken a pull before answering. “That is my real name. And I really am being blackmailed, though the content is rather personal. I’d prefer if you didn’t know,” Chrollo gave, snatching a cigarette for himself. Silva made no move to stop him, merely pushed the ashtray closer to his side of the desk.

“I need to know. It’s part of my job.”

Chrollo smiled. “That information is part of mine, which is why I need it back.” He held his cigarette like a movie star, like death was a fashion statement. “I’ll pay whatever you ask. Will you help me, Detective?” He exhaled smoke and it blurred his features.

Silva added to the cloud before stamping out his own in the ashtray. He could tell it was going to be a long night.

oOo

Thinking back on it, Silva still couldn’t place the particular bout of madness that enticed him to say yes. The dried note in his hand crinkled as he shoved it deeper into his pocket, the auction around him swelling like a bloated tide.

“I have an idea of who is after me,” Chrollo had admitted once the details had been settled. “You’re no doubt familiar with the auction held here yearly? Try there. All sorts of unsavory characters seem to gather inside, hiding among the riffraff. I suggest starting with the coordinators. They never liked me much.”

Silva scoffed under his breath, forcing his way through the crowd. As if he could simply walk up to any of the countless armed mafia soldiers and ask for some pretty boy’s extortion files back. He had suggested from the start to pay them what they asked. It would be safer than trying the direct approach, a few salacious pictures hardly worth facing down the barrel of a gun, he had argued. For all his efforts though, he merely got a small knowing smile, a pledge of full confidence in his services.

An intercom chimed somewhere above his head, calling the bidders to the main auction floor. Slowly the halls began to empty, the flood dying down to a trickle, and Silva walked faster towards the upper levels.

The paper was creased, crinkled with the telltale sound of having been waterlogged and dried, but it still bore the iconic indentations unique to the stationary offered within the illustrious hotel above the auction house. With the auction distracting the guards below, it was perhaps the only opportunity he would get to search the rooms housing the groups orchestrating the event.

Honestly, it wasn’t worth the money.

Silva, his back pressed against the wall, waited with bated breath for the patrolling men to pass him by before turning the corner. A quick glance at the hastily scrawled room number inked on his wrist, the script cramped and messy, and he darted to the far end of the hall. The swiped key card granted him entry with nary a protest. Once inside, he let himself exhale. He was getting too old for this cloak and dagger shit, even if half the work was done for him.

It would be too much to ask for Chrollo’s unknown blackmail to be sitting on a table, conveniently out in the open. With another sigh, Silva set to scouring the room. The mafia organizers lived like they worked, their luggage neat and tidy, the trappings of the room carefully in place. A maid couldn’t have done a better job, and he knew for a fact that there hadn’t been one allowed inside. So much distrust despite the neutrality of the auction grounds. He turned his search towards the safe, the only truly secure hiding place around.

Thankfully, it was a cheap safe, one he was familiar with. The make was old, probably installed when the hotel was first built a few decades back. He knew the type intimately, knew the proper way to work it to overwhelm the tumblers. A few shakes, exactly three turns of the dial, and one sharp rap and the door swung open. Silva let himself smile. It’d been awhile since he’d had to do that.

The inside was filled to bursting. Fat files, loose papers, a ring of keys, and countless notebooks lined the small hotel safe. With a sigh heavy on his lips, he pulled out a stack and flicked through it. There was a reason for his insistence on knowing the type of blackmail it was, he hadn’t been asking for his health. Photos, auction ledgers, debt accounts; there was no telling how much information he held in his hand and who it all pertained to. A quick glance at his watch told him he had already used up about ten minutes. He didn’t want to stay longer than he absolutely had to, not with the risk of detection so high.

With no other option, Silva transferred the contents of the safe into the bag he had brought.

oOo

Eyes wide, Chrollo watched as Silva pulled more and more from the satchel, covering the fancy marble table with confidential files. “This was certainly more than I expected. Is this all about me?” he asked, picking up a dark red ledger and leafing through it.

Silva reached for his own file, taking a pull of the equally fancy coffee Chrollo had elected to make for him upon entering his penthouse. “If it is then you’re in deeper trouble than I can get you out of. There was too much to sift through there so I grabbed it all. You like to read, you can help me go through this until we find your portion.”

“How did you know I liked to read?” Chrollo was already ahead of him, his dark eyes intent on the pages before him. Absent mindedly, he took a sip of his own drink, curled more comfortably into his sitting room chair. “Though a better question would be how you found my home. Not that I’m begrudging your company.”

“I’m a detective, it’s my business to know.” He threw down the file onto the floor, already envisioning the large pile that would occupy the space by the time they were done. Some measly blackmail couldn’t take up that much space, not in a stack this big. “What I don’t know is what we’re looking for. You could shed some light on the subject, speed this up a bit.”

Chrollo merely smiled that damned smile, coy like the Mona Lisa in monochrome. “You’re the detective, shouldn’t you just _know_?” He let the ledger fall to the floor, the sharp smack masked in the plush carpet.

It drew Silva’s attention despite the muffled thump, more so when Chrollo deigned to stand up, crossing the space between them like a moth drawn to a flame. No, a cat, he corrected somewhere in the back of his mind, as Chrollo sinuously straddled his lap. Something feral, stalking with intent. Anything but passive.

The file in his hand was pulled from lax fingers, tossed messily over Chrollo’s shoulder.

“What are you doing?” Silva asked, voice low. His hands automatically rested on the thin waist, tightening as the pretty boy rolled into him.

Chrollo tilted his head, his smile unreadable but so very inviting. “Do you want me to stop?” he countered, letting his hands trail down the coat Silva hadn’t bothered taking off, unbuttoning the crisp dress shirt underneath. His fingertips were cool as they traced down his bare skin, provoking.

Another roll of his hips and Silva bit down on the groan building in his throat. From this position, he could make out every nuance of Chrollo’s face, see the thrumming of his pulse in his throat, the teasing edge of his clavicle exposed behind the loose neck of his sweater. A pink tongue flicked out, licking his lips beneath the scrutiny, and Silva didn’t try to resist the urge to chase it home.

oOo

The moment he opened his eyes, he knew something was wrong.

The bedroom was opulent if understated, the bed made all the more massive when sleeping alone. Silva reached over, checked for any residual body heat that would tell him how long Chrollo had been absent. Silk sheets mussed and cold, he grit his teeth and dragged himself up, hunting for the pieces of clothing that had been shed messily the night before. He pulled on the pants and shirt as he walked through the penthouse halls, jerking to a stop when he came upon the sitting room.

Every file, ledger, scrap of paper; gone. Abandoning the last of his buttons, Silva looked around, checking the kitchen, living room, office—

There was nothing left, of Chrollo or the files.

Silva spat out a curse and snatched up his coat, haphazardly thrown over the lamp. There was no telling how much dangerous information he had just lost, what Chrollo actually intended to use it for, or even the scope of what he had opened by giving the man access to those files. The mafia was insidious, a Pandora’s Box waiting to be unleased.

He was on the verge of crossing the threshold when he noticed the paper flutter to the floor, falling from the folds of his coat. Silva reached for it, recognizing a moment later that it was a ticket. It wasn’t there on accident.

With a begrudging smile, he pocketed the stub and darted out the door. He wasn’t all that knowledgeable of this part of the city, never having much reason to frequent the ritzy neighborhoods. But the train station, well he knew that like the back of his hand. It didn’t take long to navigate the pristine streets, to race past expensive storefronts until the pavement lost its shine and faded to the familiar dinge of pedestrian mundanity.

He pulled the ticket piece from his pocket and read off the station number again, double checking that he had the right place. The large clock next to the platform read a quarter til eight. There was still plenty of time for him to catch the brat before he boarded. Luckily there didn’t seem to be much of a crowd, making it all the easier to claim a bench near the ticket stand. If he tried to embark, Silva would see him coming.

The minutes passed by in the form of commuters, men and women exhausted by the prospect of yet another day of work. Silva tapped his foot, kept his eyes on them all as they crossed his line of sight. A glimpse of dark hair, the shadow of darker eyes; he caught pieces but never the full picture, never the perfect arrangement of the beautiful thief. Each snippet set him further on edge, his fingertips digging into the wood of the bench.

“How kind of you to see me off,” a voice murmured in his ear, a gentle hand trailing through his long hair.

Silva whipped around, snatching the wrist of the smiling thief before he could dart away. “Why did you do it?” he demanded as he stood, using his considerable size to pin Chrollo in place against the wall behind them. “I don’t appreciate being used, Lucilfer.”

Chrollo laughed breathlessly, his scarf a lazy attempt at covering the marks along his neck. Despite the tight grip Silva had on his forearms, he still was able to lean up, seal their lips together.

Just as it had been the night before, Silva was powerless to refuse the advance. Instead, he deepened the kiss, his hands moving to his waist, where he knew the bruises would match his fingers. Chrollo was eager, warm, everything he had been the night before and what the morning should have brought. On the verge of losing himself, Silva could only kiss harder, close his eyes.

When he opened them, he wasn’t surprised to find Chrollo gone. The station noises swelled in to fill the sudden void, a cacophony of sounds signaling that the train was boarding, on the verge of leaving. Silva turned, caught the sight of the haphazardly wrapped scarf, the sharp lines and razor edges of Chrollo’s grin as he leaned against the train’s railing. From this position, he could just make out the satchel, filled to the bursting with the mafia’s most hidden secrets.

The train rumbled, the engine deafening as it clattered to life and began moving. Silva took a step towards it, and then another. His mind, filled with thoughts of grabbing on, jumping the rail, refusing to lose, quieted though as Chrollo smiled. He blew a kiss, said something lost beneath the din of the locomotive.

Instead of following, of charging forward, Silva fell into the bench, a smile of his own splitting his face. He didn’t think he’d ever been played quite so thoroughly before. The train cleared the station, taking Chrollo with it. The sight of his departure played behind his eyes, like the credits of a movie.

_“Thank you, Detective.”_

**Author's Note:**

> woot woot im pretty happy with this one, it combines a lot of my favorite literary tropes. it was pretty hard to resist the urge to make this a long ass multi-chaptered affair but with my fic schedule as full as it is, it wasnt a good idea. who knows, maybe ill revisit it! anyway, check me out on tumblr (terminallydepraved) and let me know how you liked this. until next time~


End file.
